View full sizeOswego StateOswego State hockey player Neil Musselwhite.Whenever the Oswego State penalty kill unit is set to fly over the boards, Lakers coach Ed Gosek delivers a little message.

“Coach always reminds us, if you have a chance to go (on the offensive), attack,” said senior forward Neil Musselwhite. “He wants to make sure it’s in the back of your head.”

In the case of Musselwhite, that’s like reminding a starving wolf that a pork chop would make a tasty snack. Few players in the country can put an opponent with a manpower advantage on the defensive as quickly as him.

Musselwhite paces Division III with four shorthanded goals, three coming in one stunning stretch vs. Brockport earlier this season. Overall he has nine shorties in his career, with Gosek estimating that for every bid he converts there’s a few quality chances that just miss.

“It’s an acquired skill, just like anything else,” Musselwhite said. “Penalty killing doesn’t have the glory power play does. You are expected to stop goals. When a penalty kill is over, it’s just expected you didn’t get scored on. You learn to take pride in that you didn’t give up a goal.”

Musselwhite’s hustle sets a tone that has the Lakers puffing out their chests for a lot of reasons these days. At 13-1, the team is ranked No. 1 in the country as it resumes play this weekend by hosting its own tournament. The field includes Elmira, the only team to beat Oswego State this season.

Oswego State’s start is creating flashbacks to three years ago, when the Lakers won the national title. That team had three freshmen - Musselwhite, Brad Dormiedy and Tyler Lyon. Now, they are the three leaders on a precocious young squad trying to make a name for itself in the biggest way possible. Lyon is the captain while Musselwhite and Dormiedy are the alternates.

Gosek dumped a lot of responsibility on those six shoulders. With the Lakers losing 12 seniors who formed the heart of that championship team, he pointed out that it was partly their responsibility to help bring the dozen freshmen up to the standards of a national-caliber program.

“We never wanted to look at this year as a rebuilding year,” Musselwhite said. “We didn’t expect this (a top ranking) to happen. I think a lot of the freshmen became comfortable. We stressed a lot of team unity.”

Musselwhite speaks from a position of authority that’s well-earned. Before penalty killing became his calling card, he was nudged into it as an eager newcomer willing to fill any niche just to get a few more shifts.

In juniors, Musselwhite said he was a top line forward, a power play mainstay who rarely was asked to kill penalties. When he joined the Lakers, though, Gosek looked at his speed and aggressiveness and saw him as a valuable role player on the man-down unit.

“When you are a freshman, any extra ice time you get, you relish,” Musselwhite said.

“He can go in and force on the penalty kill and has the speed to get back,” Gosek said. “We think he’s one of the fastest kids in the country. He can turn the jets on. And when he does get it (the puck), he can attack.”

Musselwhite was more enthusiasm than technique in his earlier penalty killing days. He’s learned to clog shooting lanes by attacking the release points of shooters instead of rushing directly at their bodies. He’s a better shot-blocker because he’s less susceptible to fakes.

That grunt work burst into a spectacular show against Brockport on Dec. 4. Musselwhite potted a shorty at the 19:37 mark of the second, added another 11 seconds later and then capped the improbable hat trick with a third 2:36 into the third period.

To this point, the same can be said of the Lakers as a whole. Oswego State’s start raises the inevitable comparisons to the championship team, a shadow that neither Gosek nor Musselwhite tries to avoid. Gosek said it was about this time in that season that he began to see the Lakers as title material, and he thinks the same fabric is weaving through this edition.

“There are similarities in that the chemistry part is good,” Gosek said. “That’s what we see in this team, they are very resilient. They don’t get down. They have the right approach. There’s no panic. Very rarely do we talk about winning. We just talk about controlling the things we can.”